THE LITTLE FOXES Shattered Globe Theatre
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The central figure, Regina Hubbard Giddens, is one of the great antiheroines of American literature: monstrous but also human, ruthless and cunning but also full of grit, vigor, intelligence, and dark wit. Modeled on Hellman’s grandmother Sophie—a German Jew whose family settled in New Orleans in the 1850s—Regina is deeply frustrated because, as a woman living in 1900 Alabama, she’s relegated to second-class status. Her late father left all his money to her brothers, Ben and Oscar Hubbard, even though she’s smarter and shrewder than both of them put together. She’s financially dependent on her husband Horace Giddens—a wealthy businessman with a serious heart condition—although their relationship went sour years ago. At the play’s start, Regina and Horace haven’t slept together in ten years.
When Regina and her brothers get an opportunity to invest in a cotton mill a Chicago businessman wants to build in their town, Regina must coax her share of the investment out of Horace, who wants no part of the deal—or any deal involving his wife’s rapacious family.
Still, though The Little Foxes was originally a vehicle for Tallulah Bankhead, it works equally well as an ensemble piece. Director Brandon Bruce has made fine use of Shattered Globe’s two longtime leading ladies, Linda Reiter and Eileen Niccolai. As Regina, Reiter is less imposing than Bette Davis in the memorable film version, but she brings a flinty energy to the role. Her Regina has never been taken seriously by the men who control her world. You can imagine what it was like for her growing up, trying to get a word in edgewise as her garrulous brothers bantered with each other. And you can sense her biding her time, coiled like a viper, waiting to strike. Niccolai’s Birdie, meanwhile, is funny and touching, gay and sad in equal measure—a good-hearted if somewhat silly woman who has long watched in helpless horror as her husband and son destroyed her illusions of gentlemanly gentility.
